Five Portraits by Piers Anthony Page A

more satisfied with her present existence than she was in the past. Were I to associate closely enough with a souled person, as she did, I might pick up at least a portion of a soul.”
    â€œThat’s why you want a friend!” Astrid said. “So her soul might rub off on you.”
    â€œPart of it, at any rate,” the Demoness agreed. “Enough, perhaps, to provide me with what I crave.”
    â€œWhat do you crave?”
    â€œThe abatement of my loneliness.”
    â€œYou are lonely? You have unimaginable power! How can you be lonely?”
    Fornax laughed. “Were you not lonely at the beginning of your life?”
    Astrid thought back again. “I believe I was, though I did not realize it at the time. Basilisks don’t have friends.”
    â€œNeither do soulless Demons.”
    â€œAnd you, associated with antimatter, can’t get close to anyone else anyway. That must be very difficult.”
    â€œIt is,” Fornax agreed. “Touch my hand, and it will allow some of my feeling to show.”
    Curious, Astrid took her hand again.
    Suddenly she felt the utter loneliness not of hours or days or years or centuries, but of billennia: maybe twelve billion years. It was a deep and awful gulf extending beyond her imagination.
    â€œWake,” Fornax said.
    Astrid snapped out of her trance. “What happened?”
    â€œYou freaked out.”
    â€œBut only men freak out when they glimpse a woman’s panties.”
    â€œMen are relatively superficial, compared to women, being really interested in only one thing. There are many ways to freak. Overwhelming feeling is one.”
    The Demoness was a creature in need of more than Astrid could provide. But at least she could help. She remembered that she was destined to have three friends, each more important than the previous ones. This seemed to be the realization of that. “I fear it is but a grain of sand in a mountain, but I will try to be your friend.”
    â€œThank you.” Perhaps there was a tear in Fornax’s eye.
    â€œHow do we proceed? I am not well experienced in friendship.”
    â€œI thought you would know, because you already have a friend in Kandy. I have never had a friend.”
    â€œI do have a friend in Kandy,” Astrid agreed thoughtfully. “And another in MareAnn. But they led the way. They knew what to do. I am still learning.”
    â€œThen we have a problem.”
    â€œMaybe we need advice. I can ask Kandy.”
    â€œNo. Her conflict of interest applies to this. Anyway, she has enough to occupy her at the moment.”
    â€œEnough?”
    â€œShe is my representative in Xanth. She is now negotiating a Demon Wager.”
    Astrid was taken aback. “I thought Demons negotiated their own terms.”
    â€œNot always. The other Demons don’t like dealing with me directly, so they are dealing with my representative. She has authority to speak for me on this particular matter, though she is not pleased.”
    â€œNot pleased?”
    â€œShe doesn’t like the subject.”
    â€œDoes the subject matter? She just needs to be objective.”
    â€œShe is finding that difficult.”
    Astrid hesitated. “She is my friend, and I am concerned. Why should she find it hard to be objective?”
    â€œBecause the subject is the Land of Xanth, and she has a certain interest in it.”
    â€œI don’t want to intrude in what is not my business, but I think it would help my understanding if I knew more about this.”
    â€œIf we are to be friends, my business becomes your business, and your business mine, as I understand it. So I will tell you. The subject is the destruction of the Land of Xanth.”
    Astrid was taken even further aback. “As it happens, I too have an interest, being another denizen of Xanth.”
    â€œYou need not be concerned. It doesn’t happen until fifty years hence.”
    â€œThat helps. But I may live